Jazz Articles about Allison Au

About Allison Au

Jazz Raconteurs

Allison Au's Migration Project: Transition, Trauma, and Transcendence

by Dave Kaufman
November 1, 2023

"Human beings are both fixed and wandering, settlers and nomads. Our history is the story of the nomad giving way to the settler but when people are unsettled, they have to migrate." (Ruth Padel, On Migration, 2013) Human migration has exerted a profound and far-reaching influence on the evolution of our civilization and the shaping of our cultural landscape. Much has been written about the Great Migration of the first decades of the 20th century, in which millions ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Releases by Estrella Acosta, Eddie Henderson, Vanessa Perea, Antoine Drye, Caroline Davis, Allison Au, Birthday Shoutouts & More

by Mary Foster Conklin
October 30, 2023

This broadcast includes new releases by Estrella Acosta, Eddie Henderson, Vanessa Perea, Antoine Drye, Caroline Davis and Allison Au}, with birthday shoutouts to {{m: Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Troup, Jane Bunnett, Anita O'Day, Barbara Fasano, Lakecia Benjamin, Laura Nyro, Esperanza Spalding, Brenda Earle Stokes and Jodi Proznick, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire. Playlist ...

Album Review

Allison Au: Migrations

Read "Migrations" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 24, 2023

Canadian saxophonist Allison Au says she was drawn to the simplicity of a jazz quartet “as a vehicle for realizing the visions of my original compositions." Charlie Parker must have felt the same way; Art Pepper, too. And John Coltrane. Au stuck to this format for her Wander Wonder (Self Produced, 2018) and 2017's self-produced Forest Grove (review here). Both were terrific outings that spoke to the young artist's potential. But as with the noted giants mentioned above, Au must ...

Album Review

Noam Lemish: Twelve

by Jack Bowers
December 7, 2022

The number Twelve has several explicit meanings on Israeli-born composer/pianist Noam Lemish's eighth album as leader of his own ensemble, which is twelve members strong (well, thirteen on the first two numbers, on which Laura Swankey adds wordless vocals, and twenty-five if one counts the thirteen-member chorus on Track 3). Returning to the basic premise, Lemish composed his first piece of music at age twelve, and it has been twelve years since he relocated from San Francisco to Toronto, Canada. ...

Album Review

Karl Silveira: A Porta Aperta

Read "A Porta Aperta" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 30, 2022

Toronto-based trombonist Karl Silveira opens his debut recording, A Porta Aperta, with no ego at all. The disc spins into life with “Nymark Plaza," featuring an arrangement which allows the rhythm section—pianist Chris Pruden, bassist Dan Fortin, with Nico Dann on drums—a good deal of room to stretch out after a brief beginning of understated harmony from the leader, and alto saxophonist Allison Au. The piano, bass and drums ease into an off-center, Andrew Hill-like rumination before the leader re-enters ...

Album Review

Amanda Tosoff: Earth Voices

Read "Earth Voices" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 10, 2021

Building off the lure of language planted in Amanda Tosoff's Juno-nominated Words (Empress Music Group, 2016), this sixth album from the Toronto-based composer and pianist waves poetic in wondrous fashion. Pairing different guest vocalists and collections of musicians with personalized takes on Parnassian beauty of varied sorts, Tosoff cements the bonds between earthly voices and heavenly sounds with a questioning spirit. The list of subjects and styles, both in words and music, varies widely on this playlist. ...

Album Review

Mark Godfrey: Square Peg

Read "Square Peg" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 24, 2020

Mark Godfrey has done his fair share of commuting in furtherance of his jazz career. Toronto--his home base--to New York has been a regular journey. The near five hundred mile trip would certainly be shorter (timewise) via airplane. But the decision was made to roll in a 2006 Dodge Caravan, due to the fact (we can guess) that an acoustic bass is a bulky yet fragile beast, susceptible to in transit damages. In your own vehicle, you can treat the ...